Science Versus Religion

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Battered Women in Islam

Public slashing of Palestinian woman’s throat over divorce sparks protest:

BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK—The brutal killing of a battered wife in front of horrified witnesses in an open-air Bethlehem market prompted angry accusations Wednesday that Palestinian police and courts ignore violence against women.

Nancy Zaboun, a 27-year-old mother of three, had her throat slashed Monday after seeking a divorce from her abusive husband of 10 years. The husband was arrested at the scene and is the prime suspect, West Bank officials said. The case reverberated across Palestinian society because of the brutality of the attack. However, violence against women continues to be tolerated — similar to attitudes in other parts of the Arab world — and women’s rights activists say abusive husbands are rarely punished.

Zaboun was regularly beaten by her husband, 32-year-old Shadi Abedallah, at times so severely that she had to be hospitalized, said Haula al-Azraq, who runs a West Bank counselling centre where Zaboun sought help. Even so, Abedallah was never arrested. Police only made him sign pledges he would stop hitting his wife, said al-Azraq, adding that Abedallah himself is a former police officer.

Zaboun was killed after attending a hearing in her divorce case. She was walking on the steep paths of an open-air market — not far from the Church of the Nativity, marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus — when she was fatally slashed.

What can be said about such a case? Or about a culture and religion that does not merely tolerate such terrifying brutality against women, but actually encourages it?

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Man Rapes New Bride with Chloroform

Man jailed for using chloroform to rape his new bride:

A husband who raped his new wife after knocking her out with chloroform when she refused him sex has been jailed for eight years.

The man, 35, tied her to a bed with a scarf and used the anaesthetic twice during their six-week marriage. His wife, a Bangladeshi ­immigrant, 23, first turned him down on their wedding night because she was too nervous.

The husband had denied the two rapes in Poplar, East London.

At the Old Bailey, prosecutor Richard Hearnden said: “She says she was forced to marry him. “The period of time between the defendant first meeting her and the marriage ceremony was extremely short.”

Just eight years?!?

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Afgan Schoolgirls Poisoned

There's a very real war against girls and women going on in Afghanistan:

At least 140 Afghan schoolgirls and female teachers were admitted to a local hospital Tuesday after drinking poisoned water, said local health officials, who blamed the act on extremists opposed to women's education.

The victims range in age from 14 to 30 and were taken to a hospital in Afghanistan's northeastern Takhar province after their school's water tank was contaminated, according to provincial health department director Dr. Hafizullah Safi.

No deaths were reported, but more than half the victims partially lost consciousness, while others suffered dizziness and vomiting

It's not the first time: "In 2010, more than 100 schoolgirls and teachers were sickened in a series of similar poisonings."

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Creeping Theocracy in Women's Dress in Egypt

Theocracy is on the march in Egypt: Egyptian women fret as 'modesty' becomes election issue:

CAIRO -- Marwa and Heba are polar opposites, at least outwardly. Both 23 years old, Marwa, a recent university graduate and unemployed, is veiled, while Heba displays her hair in a pony-tail uncovered. Both take drags from their shisha (water pipe) at a local cafe.

Yet, in spite of their appearance, both are frustrated at the campaign promises being touted by leading politicians over how women should dress and act. A lengthy elections season has begun in Egypt, with legislative polling starting November 28 and continuing in stages until March, followed by a presidential vote in 2013. And, freed from the strictures of the Mubarak era, politicians are pushing forward on an Islamic agenda.

"It's so frustrating," says Marwa, who told The Media Line that she wears the veil in part because her mother wants it and partly out of the conviction that "it was the right thing to do." But at the same time she is critical of politicians "who would dare tell a woman what is appropriate. That is un-Islamic."

And:

The controversy over the status of women in post-Mubarak Egypt came to a head at the start of November after Hazem Saleh Abu Ismail, a leading presidential candidate and Muslim cleric, gave two television interviews in which he outlined an Islamic future for the country that would impose Saudi Arabian-style dress and behavior on the public.

In an interview on the 90 Minutes television program, Abu Ismail said he supported what he called "Islamic dress" for women, meaning the hijab, or veil. Asked about what would happen to a woman wearing a bikini on the beach, he responded, "she would be arrested."

Days later, he went on the Biladna Bil Masr program and lashed out at the show's popular TV host, Reem Maged, and all other unveiled women in the country. He declared al-tabarouj (the failure to cover one's hair and of wearing makeup) a "mortal sin" and said he would make such actions "criminal," citing his interpretation of Islamic law.

He told Maged he wouldn't have agreed to the interview at all because of her dress but said that in politics "things are different" and he has to meet with people from all walks of life.
To underscore his point, a Facebook-based Salafist news outlet re-aired the interview with Maged's head and face covered by a dark filter to "veil" her.

Read the whole thing.

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